Angry Chemists - Periodic Table of Videos

I'm reading a letter on my computer which has been sent by a whole group of extremely distinguished and senior organic chemists to David Cameron the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom now it's not often that chemistry professors write the Prime Minister and they usually do it when they're very angry and this is one of the times when they are angry the letter is about funding of research now many of you who watch our videos may not realize that chemical research at universities and at Institute's is expensive you probably guess that we have to pay for the chemicals but we also have to pay the salaries of the people who work here and of course we have to buy equipment and we have to repair the equipment and buy new equipment when it breaks down and so on and in the UK the money is provided by the government but through a series of agencies called the research councils there's one for engineering and physical sciences who in fact have sponsored some of our videos and they cover chemistry and physics and then there are the ones for biology for Arts and Humanities and so on most of you will realize that there in world is in a difficult financial situation at the moment and many governments including the UK government has had to cut the amount of money that it spends and therefore the money that has gone to the research councils has been reduced and correspondingly the amount of money for research for universities has been reduced what is angered the professor's is really two different things the first one is that there has been a decision to reduce the amount of money for funding of PhD students and this is particularly hard for chemistry because training of PhD students is a very important activity for universities they're producing the next generation of chemists who will work in our chemically based industries the second point which is really what's prompted the letter is that there's been the decision that within chemistry there isn't enough money to fund everything to an equal level and so the money is going to be reduced for funding of synthetic organic chemistry now I'm not an organic chemist I've never been good to make all these complicated molecules but synthetic organic chemistry is an enormous ly important activity for all sorts of reasons most of the pharmaceutical products the medicines that you and I rely on are developed invented by organic chemists sometimes they call themselves medicinal chemists but they're people who have been trained to use organic chemistry to put together complicated molecules the professor's who have written this letter are those who write across the UK and in fact outside the UK who are supporting their colleagues are specialists to developing new ways of making molecules so that we can make molecules that are different from anything that's been made before and which might have really valuable medicinal properties you said yourself these are tough times money has to be cutting budgets shouldn't science be wearing the cuts as well I think the objection of these professors is of course they're upset that money has been cut but first of all they feel that it should be decided that the money that is available should be fat used to fund the best science the best chemistry that can be done and not make the administrative decisions that where we're not going to fund so much of that or the other but surely if the government changed its mine and cut something else instead a whole different people bunch of people would suddenly write a letter saying no no you can't cut that everyone thinks their thing is the most important in science when somebody proposes something it is objected to what is called peer review you may have seen this on some of Brady's other videos that the proposal is sent to a number of scientists not necessarily in the UK and asked how good do you think this is and they reply anonymously so they can be honest without feeling that their future careers are jeopardized and I think the argument of the scientists is that if you have a given pot of money you should fund those proposals that get the best reviews irrespective of which pet area they're in of course scientists have a responsibility to the taxpayers and I believe that science and I think most of my colleagues also believe that science in the UK is fantastically good value for money and you can see through the YouTube channels here we just show you a small amount of the science that's going on in physics and chemistry in one university and this is being replicated all over the country research at universities is leading to new chemical factories to new products to new companies and so the amount of money that is invested by the government is producing real jobs and a real contribution to the economy chemistry and science is important but surely not more important than hospitals and schools and police and things like that shouldn't we be looking after those you know science has to take the hit well better that than a hospital when I have a heart attack I think what you hold is a very common view but if you go into a hospital and have heart attack what happens is that you are treated with drugs you're treated with warfarin to thicken it to thin your blood you're treated possibly if it gets the stage where you need a heart transplant you're treated with a whole series of drugs and where did these drugs come from they came from chemists so it's fine at the moment hospitals could manage without chemists but in a short time there won't be the people to analyse for what's in your blood what needs to be sorted out and when the next lot of antibiotic resistant bacteria comes who's going to make the new antibiotics so as I said everything will crash to a halt and in the case of the police obviously chemists don't fight the rioters but who do you think it is who made the uniforms produced the chemicals that are used in the riot shields the stab-proof vests and the visors and so on that the police wear we're an integrated society everybody needs to be supported to the level that will provide a good support to our country and who can provide the means for increased prosperity for all members of society you

Channel: Periodic Videos

Views: 542,913

Rating: 4.9273767 out of 5

Keywords: chemistry, prime, minister, david, cameron, margaret, thatcher

Id: op3w7Gl83mU

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/UnexpectedCompany]

Thanks for this, I always love the Periodic Table of Videos and this does make you think a little bit about how important science is to our world.

Thanks Again!

[u/[deleted]]

Very hostile interviewer, but i guess it's not this professors job to go into critique of political economy. It's probably where you have to go though if you want to stop the cuts to research at universities.

The part about the materials in the police uniforms used to beat up looters was really weird.

[u/cwm44]

Maybe this should be reposted to the UK subreddit?